I am writing today already seven years past Adi Da’s Mahasamadhi and now in my mid-sixties.

And yet I am remembering the “Look” of Adi Da.

How in Darshan He would simply be present and look around the room. Now I am going to write my best understanding here, but I don’t “know” about any of this. But as Adi Da looked around the room there would be a time when He would look at each person. And if you could hold His Gaze, if you were present, He would look at “you” and continue to look at you for some time. And there were those occasions, if you really felt Him deeply, then He would turn and He would “zoom” right to you, no matter where He had otherwise been looking. And He would hold that Gaze until your attention wandered. He would look away and you would realize that you had been thinking or elsewhere somehow.

During one period, in 1975, Adi Da would sit in what we now call Temple Adi Da, but then called Western Face Cathedral. He would sit in the mid-day, around 3 o’clock on Saturday and Sunday. The sitting would last for an hour or so and the Cathedral would be filled with over 200 of us.

What incredible occasions! What extraordinary Grace! I would prepare myself all day long. All day long, no matter what I was doing, I would be getting ready for the Sitting with Adi Da. I don’t think we called it Darshan, I think we called it Sitting with Bubba in those days. And when it got to be about 2 o’clock on, then I just wanted to be alone and quiet and really just focus on getting ready. I understood this to be the greatest opportunity and also each occasion was an incredible test. I would go be by myself up in the library and sit in a corner and just ready myself.

Now I heard that Bhagavan Adi Da told us that He had a Siddhi whereby many people could all think that He was looking directly at them at the same time. No matter what it might have seemed like to a camera, the perception of many individuals after the Sitting was that Adi Da had been looking at them for a long time. Now sometimes, it was literally that way, Bhagavan would look at some particular individual for a while–I have known Adi Da to look at people for an extended period in such Darshan or meditation occasions. And there are various Sittings with Adi Da where He looked at me for extended periods of time. In 1992, on retreat, in the retreatant Hall, Mindless Company, there was a sitting occasion where Adi Da Gazed at me for what was at least one half hour. Another time at the Manner of Flowers, in 1980, Adi Da looked at me for ten minutes at the beginning of the occasion. Those are both stories to tell in themselves.

But there were these times in Western Face Cathedral, where it seems that He would look at me and look at me and look at me. Well let me explain. I would sit usually in the same place. About half way back in the room or a little further, and right in the middle. And it was like waiting for my lover to arrive. I would sit awaiting a moment when He might Gaze at me. And I was so in love. I am speaking of the Look, but I might just as well speak of the Love. It was the same. The Look was Love Incarnate. And He would look, and I would just be there. I would let go of absolutely everything. Myself as a person. The room and the body and the setting. I would just enter into those eyes, and whatever arose was not the point. Let it go, but don’t even spend any time letting it go. Just maintain the Look. Be there with Bhagavan. Be there with that Love, those Eyes, in that moment, and this moment, and this moment, always now. Match the Love with my love. Let the natural motive of the heart leap forward and be forward. And now in this moment return to that look. Not even return, just be there. And allow myself to be carried anywhere and anyplace, but wherever I was, just be there with that look. And it would seem that for eternities I would be held in that Gaze of Love. Always fresh, always now, always immediate. I felt that I was “hogging” all of Adi Da’s Attention sometimes. But any thought like that, just let it go, and be there. But I also knew that it was 100% lawful and that I could not for one second trick Adi Da into looking at me. When He looked away, sometimes, there would appear to be a look of displeasure that somehow I had broken the Gaze through my inattention, my being distracted. He was wanting absolute Fidelity. And it was more intimate than any lovemaking that I had done with a woman, any moment of hugging or embrace with my parents or my friends. It was the deepest intimacy that I had ever known, and have ever known.

Of course I am writing of this now because that Look, that Love is timeless and it is NOW also. And it has never left, but is always there. Because it was Divine or Reality, it was not limited to any time or place. I understand intellectually and also have intuited in my life with Adi Da Samraj, that the Divine Being that He is, that He has Incarnated, that is the Nature of Reality and is the Truth of all of us also, is a seamless unity with everything and all and transcends everything and all. So this look in 1975 in Western Face Cathedral is what I was just feeling on the cot a minute ago, as I lay contemplating Adi Da. It is that Look, that present time Embrace of Love.

As I would enter into Western Face Cathedral I waited for His Look just as one would await the embrace of one’s lover, or the meeting with one’s deepest intimate, or the refrain in a song, or the healing presence of nature, or the thrill of orgasm, or the satisfaction of anything that is pleasurable. But it was the THING itself, not a substitute. I guess this is another way of saying that Guru is God, in other words, what I know as God is what I have seen in Adi Da’s Eyes. And it seemed that all He was doing was looking for people that would be present with Him, that were ready and available for actually meeting and being with Him. He was Always Already in that space. And He would simply sit there as Love and being Who He Is with you in that Space and that place and a moment there was already to have contacted Eternity which is full and enough for Always just in a moment, except that there is now this moment and it requires again that we be THERE and who would want to be anywhere else or do anything else. And He would continue to look at you as long as you were present. And there was no “enjoying” or “basking” or “gloating” or “triumphing” in that look. There was only being present. It is Love but not an emotionalism because with any of these things that we might be feeling, then already we are gone from the moment itself. And yes, it is SATORI, or SAMADHI with open eyes, and as great as anything that a yogi or saint might struggle to achieve their entire life. Except it is given in the moment.

And so it felt to me that I spent a good part of the entire sitting many many times just looking at Adi Da and receiving His GAZE. It may have been that He was just generally looking in my direction, and not at me. It really doesn’t matter. What was important was that I was there with Him in each moment when I possibly could be. And I was THRILLED to my core by that Divinity. It was a vibrational tuning, a resonance, an embrace that was so vast that I would be stunned after each occasion. All of us were. We would leave the Hall and when we caught each other’s eyes we would acknowledge our awe at what we had seen. These days the word “awesome” is used casually. A good tasting meal is “awesome”–trivial things. But these occasions were truly AWESOME. We left in a place beyond words. And we would hug each other, or want to be alone, or just wander off. And try to reintegrate with our normal state of being while somehow holding on to this Darshan, this Blessing, this Vision.

Now of course each meditation with Adi Da, each puja, each moment of our life of turning, should and could be this same moment. And there is nothing that I am speaking of that every one who has recognized Adi Da Samraj has not also experienced.